REV: THE SOCIAL DILEMMA

Hugo Hernández Cobos - 3N - 07/03/2021

This is a review about Netflix’s The Social Dilemma documentary. The Social Dilemma explains us the
intentions of social network creators and how unintentionally social networks can be bad for young
generations, those who have grown up (and are still growing up) with internet connected mobile devices.

My intention here is to expose my opinion as one of those generations.

Growing up with these devices

I was born in 2006, and my family has always been quite connected to internet. My father enjoyed the PS2
when he was younger, my mother, instead, used to watch TV and read books because her mother didn’t
like TV.

At home my parents had their phones and we had a tablet, which my brother and I used to play sometimes
in, but only when we got permission. When I was more or less in 4th primary I got my first phone. I didn’t
have any SIM card; I can say the phone was only to spend my time when I didn’t have nothing else to do.
The phone was my father’s, so they didn’t buy a new one for me. These first years with my new phone
weren’t very interesting and I barely have memories about them. In fact, the way I talked to other people
and related with others wasn’t via messaging, I was a common boy that enjoyed to talk to others.

Then, when I got to secondary school things changed. The phones were more and more part of us and we
started communicating in social media. I remember the first schoolmate I met was by WhatsApp, but we
exchanged some photos as if it was Snapchat.

If I analyze my situation now, I can say technology, social media and mobile phones (as other devices) are
helpful for me. I have never been a very open person, and making friends has always been pretty hard or
complicated for me. I feel like when I talk to someone in Instagram I can say my thoughts and feelings
better that personally, because the phone or the screen is like a barrier that lets me not to see the other’s
face, and lets me not to feel judged, so I can feel more confident and secure. Social media or WhatsApp
has helped me in relating with others and solving problems.

The time with the devices

Parents always complain about the time we are with our phones. But they don’t know what I am doing. The
average time I use my phone on weekdays is of four or five hours a day. I don’t think that’s too much, I go
to school and go to the academy, and I do sport too. When I have some free time I watch a pair of hours
YouTube or Twitch to relax, and I do my homework. The rest of the time goes for memes, WhatsApp and
Instagram.

In the documentary they say notifications are made to keeps you all the time connected, I agree with that,
but in my case it doesn’t work. When I’m in schooldays I’m so busy that when I see such amount of
notifications I scroll all of them and I ignore them. The only ones I check are WhatsApp ones because
they’re the important ones.

But when it is summer, unfortunately, I spend too much time with my phone. I got to be more than eleven
hours with my phone. That’s one of the things I want to change this summer. I’d like to learn surfing
because I tried last summer and I really enjoyed it.
Data tracking, AIs and neural networks
As a mainly YouTube consumer, I can say I’m in favor of data tracking for neural network and AI
improvement purposes. It can seem very dangerous that enterprises collect your data, but would you
imagine the social media without cookies, selective neural networks and recommendations? It would be like
YouTube in 2011, an amount of random entertainment videos without any specific sense. Now the videos
they show you in the recommendations or the main page depend on what you have searched before and
the kind of videos you watch and you like. I personally prefer now’s YouTube than before’s.

And I’m going to add one thing. We can connect thousands or millions of computers to focus on learning
thing by their own. This is called machine learning. We can tell them to do a simple task as it would be to
play Flappy Bird. In hours or minutes the machine will be incredibly better than any human in the world
playing that game, and the machine learnt by his own.

The AIs are being used for example in Tesla cars with autopilot. I think all those systems are going to stir
up the way we do daily things.

Of course there’s danger with data tracking. Some years ago there was a data leak in Facebook, and a lot
of users’ data became vulnerable. But I don’t think any assassin wants me, so I don’t think my data is very
important, that’s why I think it is an acceptable risk.

Internet influence in elections

This is another example of the risks. Anyone can post in internet, so groups of people can convince others
about their ideas. This can cause violence in the streets as we can see in the documentary. People can
also convince others to vote one party or other in elections, and, effectively, it is dangerous for democracy.
People can also manipulate elections’ results.

I don’t see this as a problem of the social media or the internet, I see it as our society’s problem. The
internet or the networks don’t impulse chaos, inequality or false information, it is the people’s intentions.
There are and there have always been bad people in this world, and there will always be.

Changes in human behavior and mental health

I agree when they say we’re the most depressed generation, and I think most of us have suffered of
depression related symptoms.

We all like watching beautiful boys in internet but we got used to praise the perfection in a way that makes
us feel insufficient and imperfect in how we are, when we all have make mistakes and aren’t perfect.

I also have things that I don’t like from me and I sometimes regret about things I did, but we have to go
ahead with what we have done because we cannot change the past. I use to hide those things, and that’s
why many of us like so much the pandemic, because face masks hide our face. Being at home and doing
virtual classes let you not to show your face if you don’t want to, so that’s another good thing about the
pandemic and the technology.

For me technology is a very useful tool that can help you in your daily life and with your work but
that brings some risk closer, with significative negative mental health implications. It is an
acceptable risk because we are developing great technologies. We need to tell the society how to
correct use the devices and prevent the problems. It is extremely necessary to improve and
develop new and updated laws for common internet use.